Rania’s husband used to work inside Israel. But in October 2023, Israeli authorities withdrew work permits from all Palestinians – leaving Rania as the family’s sole provider.
“Sometimes I sell [my vegetables at market]. Sometimes I don’t,” the Ramallah local explains. “We barely make enough for the household.”
Rania’s struggle is far from unique. Across the West Bank – home to roughly three million Palestinians – livelihoods have collapsed since the onset of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
Israel has maintained a military occupation of the West Bank since 1967, punctuated by frequent raids and the establishment of illegal settlements. But restrictions intensified sharply after October 2023.
“Before October 23 there were around 300 Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank,” explains Beckie Ryan, deputy country director of CARE Palestine. “Now that’s over 1,000. Movement restrictions are incredibly difficult.”
The impact has been devastating. Unemployment in the West Bank rose from 12.9% in 2023 to 32% in 2024. More than 300,000 Palestinians have lost jobs, largely because they can no longer cross into Israel for work.
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“The economic situation in the West Bank in particular is deteriorating, and there is a significant need for loans for small businesses as the economy contracts,” Ryan adds.
That’s where CARE International comes in. Its UK micro-finance platform Lendwithcare is cautiously restarting loans in the West Bank – the first since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in 2023.
The platform provides zero-interest loan to a local not-for-profit partner Reef, which then provides loans to small-scale farmers and local businesses.
Individual supporters in the UK can contribute from as little as £15, with loans reaching up to about US$5,000 per entrepreneur.
“For example, if we’re talking about an agricultural farmer, roughly half of that loan might go into an irrigation system, because access to water is such a significant issue across the West Bank,” Ryan says. “The other half could go into greenhouses, additional seeds, or expanding land.”
The loans make a tangible difference “even though these are smaller amounts of money,” Ryan notes. “The ability to access capital is really important, particularly as people have had to turn back to more traditional industries. Food security is a very significant question in the West Bank.”
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Lendwithcare first launched in the territory in 2016, issuing around £1.8 million in loans to 458 entrepreneurs across Gaza and the West Bank before pausing in late 2023.
According to Ryan, the decision to restart lending now was unavoidable.
“We couldn’t wait any longer. We don’t know when the situation is going to change significantly,” she said. “The economic situation is deteriorating, and there has been a significant request from supporters to see how they can contribute.”
For Rania, access to credit could be life-changing. She dreams of leasing land further from the separation wall, installing greenhouses to protect crops, introducing new varieties, and investing in tools to ease her workload.
“If I had the resources, I could grow more, sell more, and make sure my kids have what they need,” she says.
But farming in the West Bank is fraught with danger. Tareq, a farmer in his 30s, says Israeli settlers often burn crops and block Palestinians from extinguishing the fires. “There are many areas we’re forbidden from even approaching, let alone farming,” he explains.
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According to the UN’s humanitarian office, OCHA, Palestinians now face an average of four settler attacks per day. Since October 2023, more than 1,400 attacks on homes and businesses have been recorded, alongside 499 Palestinian deaths.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law – a position reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice in 2024. Yet expansion has accelerated: Israeli NGO Peace Now reports that 49 new settlement outposts were established in 2024, the highest on record. Last week, Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced thousands of new housing units in a major settlement bloc, vowing it would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.
In this context, cultivating land takes on new meaning. It is not only an economic lifeline but also an act of resistance against displacement.
“These are traditional grazing lands as well for livestock,” Ryan says. “We’ve seen them in really hot spot areas, around Hebron in the south and also in the Jordan Valley. With increasing numbers of settlements encroaching on those spaces, the ability to sustain and replenish things that are damaged and destroyed is critical to the survival of those communities.”
While international attention remains fixed on Gaza – where more than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023 – the West Bank has seen its own crisis deepen. Raids, settler violence and sweeping restrictions on movement have left communities increasingly cut off from one another and from their livelihoods.
Small-scale businesses and farming have become a lifeline. Lendwithcare’s loans are not a solution to the occupation, but they do offer a measure of resilience in an environment where access to capital has all but collapsed.
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“Travel between towns is so hard right now,” says Ryan. “Supporting traditional areas such as agriculture, in specific areas where there might be pressure to withdraw, is integral to community survival. At a household level, it’s also about basic income, especially as more families face displacement and rising dependency on humanitarian aid.”
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